We all fuck up. And reviewing music can be seen as one, big, elaborate fuck-up — mascara-ed by layers and layers of frilly language and Michael Moore-esque logic. One could say I’ve been feeling a little bit cynical recently. One could also say I’ve been feeling a little bit cynical ever since I started taking psychology classes and reading Kurt Vonnegut. But that’s its own thing.

When rookie writers first get on music staff, the vast majority of them come to me with the exact same query: How do I review music when I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about? And instead of quelling their doubts, I’ll feed them something along the lines of: “None of us know what we’re talking about. I don’t even know what I’m talking about, and I’m the one who’s supposed to be helping you learn how to review music. So, in that sense, we all know what we’re talking about.” Which is basically a sophistic load of cheese-stuffed hot air. But hey, false confidence is the gateway drug to all happiness.

"Why so pessimistic?" you might ask. Last week I reviewed Embryonic by The Flaming Lips and I awarded it three stars — slightly above average. I’ve been listening to it relentlessly ever since. Not because I’m audio-masochistic, but because I’ve actually been enjoying it quite thoroughly. At no point during my relationship with the album was I not at least highly intrigued. But when I actually sat down to critique the thing, my mind jumped immediately to words like “flawed,” “filler” and “disjointed.”

Then there are records like The Antlers' Hospice; records built to be critic-proof. “Lush” compositions? Check. Atmospheric variety and build-and-release dynamics? Check. An intricate lyrical narrative that begs for “concept album” status? Check-plus. Naturally, I awarded the album four stars — an entire heavenly body better than Embryonic. But I haven’t revisited Hospice once since I lauded it about six weeks ago. Why? Because, in all honesty, it just isn’t that much fun. And Embryonic’s about as fun as a barrel of space monkeys.

But in order to snap into “critic mode,” I’ve conditioned myself to systematically hate fun. All right, maybe that’s a complete overstatement. But I have forced myself to develop a set of concrete criticisms with which to evaluate music. A sort of flexible, revolving, subjective pseudo-heuristic that I like to take with me when I go out poaching albums. A set of “criteria” that just so happened to clash with Embryonic and mesh with Hospice.

This said, I archly stand by all of the comments I made in both reviews. It’s just that, in the limited space of an album review, I feel it’s my duty to expose the negative underbellies of songs. And this is where the whole Michael Moore thing comes into play. Oftentimes, I write a review with the muckraking mindset that, the more criticisms I can come up with, the worse an album is.

While the word “critique” technically means “to analytically assess the good and bad qualities of something,” we tend to attach a much more negative connotation to the word. If you heard that I was coming over your house to critique you, I’m sure you wouldn’t be overly thrilled. It’s a cognitive fact that humans are much more affected by negative thoughts than positive thoughts. I’m a particular slave to this camp. So is Michael Moore, probably.

So is language in general. Nearly every language in the world has more negative words than positive words in it. And our language determines, to a large extent, our thoughts. When I go out critiquing, with my cynical taint and limited linguistic toolbox, it’s often easier to go for the knees and vomit all my frustrations with an album into the 500-to-650 word doggy-bag I’m given.

And in the case of Embryonic, a highly flawed but endlessly fascinating nut-cluster of a double-album, I will admit that I nitpicked at it.